I'm saying is that modern game engines and rendering tech allow a lot of the things that are good about these games to be turned up to eleven, both in terms of gameplay and art.
Say what you will about what it did with the characters, but Sly 4 took the level design and art to new heights, and that was thanks to modern advancements in graphics.
As someone with sexy art in the wallpaper rotation of all my devices...
It's just nice to look at?
Sexual beauty can be appreciated in the same way as any other kind of beaty. And doing so doesn't actually require being turned on, at least not in my case.
Even when it happens, enjoying art and looking at porn are different things. With porn, arousal is the only point. With something artistic, arousal is just one sliver of the full spectrum of human experience a piece might provoke.
People make custom PC builds to look cool for no other reason than that it looks cool. People hike to mountaintops just because the view is incredible. Architechts endeavor to make buildings both pleasant to look at, and be in.
The sexy art isn't pornographic to me. All I do, really, is enjoy looking at it for a moment as I go about using my devices. There is nothing perfomative about it. I could not care less what someone else thinks looking over my shoulder at my screen.
Even for the rest of us, I think it's just good for a person to experience other versions of "me".
I'm a white dude, but games can give me hints about what's it like to be someone else, and it doesn't have to match my reality in any way whatsoever. Even more than books, games immerse me into the perspectives of others.
Wine can't properly access USB devices, so even if you got iTunes installed, it wouldn't work.
I'm sceptical that a VM is out of the question, one should run on almost anything, though not necessarily perform well. I would give it an attempt, if you didn't already.
Still, it might be simplest to set up a windows install with itunes on a usb, or second partition, and boot into windows only when you need to.
Sure, but if they keep trying to go bigger, they WILL hit a ceiling. And they have yet to show a willingness to go smaller with a subsequent project when one ends up too big to pay for itself.
Squenix does not seem to know how to match a budget to the size of the market that actually exists, and only ever goes smaller in scope when something is a "side project" adjacent to a main product.
Intergrade was not as big as main FF installments, but it was well received by a lot of players. As a result they immediately scaled up Rebirth to be as big, or bigger, than anything they've done. And lo and behold, players coming from Intergrade love it, but it didn't magically mean a bunch more people bought it.
I'm referring to Squenix's habit of overspending on a franchise the moment it gets traction, and then not selling enough games to recoup cost, because there was never that much demand to begin with.
If they make money on this cross-over, then ok. But as someone with zero interest in MtG, but plenty in the new Final Fantasy games, this just feels like yet another expensive marketing stunt that will not get an actual return.
They lost money on Tomb Raider and Deus Ex, because they couldn't stop themselves spending almost as much on marketing as they did development, expecting a fan base orders of magnitude larger to materialize out of thin air.
And then, instead of reducing scope to match the number of fans and thereby sales they could actually expect, they just axed the franchises.
Yes, exactly. Getting it repaired (both within and outside of warranty) and spare parts availability.
What do you mean, "exactly"? The vast majority of owners will not need to repair theirs, and the vast majority of units will outlive their owners interest in using them. You're assuming you'll be one of the exceptions, which is always a possibility, but you can't factor it in as if it's a 100% chance.
Software eventually too, but usually that takes a while longer.
What do you mean?It's an x86 PC. The same way I can grab a 15-year-old laptop and slap a linux distro on it, the same thing is possible with the Deck.
Would you have bought a Steam Deck if Valve would stop producing them after 3 years? I wouldn't.
I would and I did. In fact every person who has bought one before today, technically did. That's a million points of contest against the argument you're trying to make with this. Are you seeing the catch 22 you're asking your tech to adhere to?
I'd have bought a Deck even if it only lasted a few months, because I got one two months after launch on pre-reservation.
And why not? It's a great device that is worth the price of admission, as-is. It runs games right now that I will still want to play years from now, and is durable enough to last that long. I do not need valve to make several million more, and to keep doing so for several years, for my unit to somehow become worth owning. It is worth that all on its own.
I get wanting companies to do hardware better, but the level of the standard you are claiming you want here, is absurd. The Decks potential for longevity is above and beyond almost any other hardware product in the tech industry right now, with the exception of the framework laptops.
My one unit has given me three years and hundreds of hours of gaming away from home, and will likely give several hundred more before it stops working. When it does, there are a variety of possibilities to get it back to working.
If it had stopped working within warranty, I'd either have gotten a new unit, or my money back. There is no gamble there.
The only impact the discontinuation of those devices had on the people who bought them, is that they can't buy another. Aside from that, they still work. You're talking as if the end of sale has some kind of significant impact that makes owning the product less worth it, or like the device ceases to exist on that day. But you clearly know otherwise.
If the Deck stops being sold tomorrow, that has zero impact on the one I already have, save for the possible decline in spare parts available.
There are lots of reasons to wait to buy something, but "they might stop selling them" seems more like a reason to get something you want to have sooner, rather than later. So that when sales stop, you have one you can keep.
Sure they do. Just not often enough.